I have a computer that has an Epson 740 printer attached that will without any warning just stop printing but continues to throw out paper
with maybe one or two fonts on it and nothing else. It does this most anytime its printing and not on the internet. Sometimes it prints without fail but its the you never know when its going to happen routine. There are no error messages according to the owner and the only way to get it to stop is to shut down the whole system. Just turn it off, let it set and then back on. A virus scan shows nothing using AVG.Also she is unable to go into print control and stop the printing.
She is running WinXP home and the driver was the one for the 740 and XP.
I believe its a driver issue but would like any ones input as to some other things to look at.

I'd vote for the driver too. I would try Removing it and any ghost drivers in Device Manager from Safe Mode and then reinstall to see if that fixes it.

It could also be a poor connection or cable going bad
Also double check the LPT port settings

You can get the same results if you start a print job (sending it to the printer) when the printer is not turned on . Then power up the printer.
Page after page of garbage ..

If the drivers and cables prove to be OK.
Then look at the spooler .
If the drivers is spooling to the hard drive
Then you could have a drive problem

Very good idea and worth a shot.Any thing in particular to look for under port settings?

Check the printer doc's for LPT port settings required.
( EP ECP and so on )
Then just set the port to those in the bios

Depending on the version of windows you use.
When you reboot after changing the port settings in the bios
Windows should report new device found and install the correct driver for those settings